Seems like another example of a new patent on a old idea.
It seems like patent law have lost it's original purpose, that the inventor can protect the new ideas from being copied.
Someone told me that the US patent office allocates 20minutes for checking a new patent. Is that enough to decide if it's new, and if it's really working.
If something are good, then there are a great chance that someone will copy it, and then will the lawyers will have a party.

interesting part will be to see if solar power can generate enough energy to charge battery for cell phone, given that phone user is not directly under sun for most of the time. Also how will it impact battery life?

Will Apple employ Linear Technology's energy harvester IC, recently introduced here in EETimes? Or will Apple design thier Analog IP for this enrgy harvester?
Can they also convert RF or uWave power in ambient to generate enrgy?

How is it different that a solar-powered car battery charger?
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-watt-solar-battery-charger-41144.html
http://www.harborfreight.com/7-amp-solar-charge-regulator-96728.html
...or what Ham radio operators have done for years....
http://www.a-aengineering.com/5smartcharger.htm
http://www.hamradio-online.com/1995/nov-dec/solar.html
The rest of the world calls this a trickle charger -- Apple calls it patentable?

I'm not aware of how the other solar-powered devices work, but perfect the inventive aspect (as far as this claim) is the ability to control the power charge to the battery to keep the battery charged. And when the battery charge begins to decrease, the solar power source begins to recharge the battery. So in this case, the solar powered source could be always connected to the phone, tablet, etc. not just to recharge the device battery and than disconnected,

People has been making Solar powered devices with
auxiliary battery for ages now. I am not sure what exactly is new here? Anyways I hope they wont start suing everyone who makes solar powered MP3 players/phones/tablets :)

Apple's new patent 7,868,582 for solar-powered Ipod, iPhone, iPad?
"15. A power package for providing solar power to an external device, the power package comprising:
a solar power source operable to derive solar power from solar energy;
and an auxiliary battery operable to:
be charged with the derived solar power, wherein the amount of derived solar power provided to the auxiliary battery is adjusted based on attributes of the auxiliary battery;
and provide the derived solar power to the external device in response to the external device being coupled to the power package in a plug-and-play fashion. "